By: The San Antonio Express-News has announced that it will stop home delivery and single-copy sales in parts of South Texas at the end of the year.
President and Publisher Tom Stephenson said readership in the affected towns and cities was too small to support the cost of distributing the paper.
"It's purely and simply a cost-cutting move," Stephenson said. "In some parts of the state, we were operating at a very significant loss."
Cities that will lose delivery are McAllen, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Donna, George West, Gonzales and Austin. The newspaper will deliver only Sunday editions to Laredo, Webb, Frio, La Salle and parts of Zapata counties.
The Express-News had been distributing 12,000 daily editions and 13,000 Sunday editions in those areas. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, the newspaper's daily circulation grew less than 1 percent in the past year to 224,223. Sunday circulation dropped 2 percent to 322,866.
The newspaper said it will continue covering the affected areas.
"The State Desk mission remains the same because we cover South Texas primarily for the benefit of our readers in San Antonio and the surrounding counties," said Express-News Editor Robert Rivard. "I'm sorry to see us pull out of so many small towns, but I'm also sorry that every household in the city no longer subscribes to the newspaper the way people once did."
Stephenson said readers in the affected areas will get the opportunity to subscribe to the newspaper's electronic edition, which can browsed in the same way as the print edition.
After 30 days of free access, the e-edition will be available by subscription for $2 a week. Stephenson said e-edition readers would be included in future circulation numbers.
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